GrixisLegendary Creature — Human PirateAdmiral Brass, Unsinkable
Mana value5Rank#7,144
The Commander
When Admiral Brass enters, mill four cards.
At the beginning of combat on your turn, you may return target Pirate creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield with a finality counter on it. It has base power and toughness 4/4. It gains haste until end of turn. (If a creature with a finality counter on it would die, exile it instead.)
Guide
Gameplan
Admiral Brass is a Pirate tribal/reanimator commander that mills itself to fill the graveyard, then each combat reanimates a Pirate as a 4/4 hasty attacker. You flood the board with Pirates, attack repeatedly, and grind value through recursion while leveraging Treasure and self-mill to power out big threats early.
Strengths
Weaknesses
- Finality counters exile reanimated Pirates on death, limiting repeated loops
- Reanimation only works at combat, so it's slow against fast combo decks
- Relies on graveyard, so graveyard hate shuts the engine down
- Five-mana commander that doesn't generate value the turn it lands
Key Cards
- Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator — Generates Treasure and card advantage off Pirate combat damage to fuel the deck.
- Hullbreacher — Powerful Pirate that punishes opponents' draw and snowballs Treasures for ramp.
- Ramirez DePietro, the Last Pirate — A recursive Pirate threat that synergizes with Brass's tribal reanimation.
- Dockside Extortionist — A Pirate that explodes your mana and is a great reanimation target after milling.
- Reanimate — Cheap reanimation that complements Brass by returning big non-Pirate bombs.
- Animate Dead — Repeatable graveyard recursion that turns self-mill into early threats.
Upgrade Path
Add fast mana like Mana Crypt, Jeweled Lotus, and more Treasure producers to deploy Brass and reanimation spells ahead of curve. Layer in efficient reanimation (Animate Dead, Reanimate, Necromancy) and impactful Pirate bodies like Hullbreacher and Dockside to maximize each combat. Tighten removal and add graveyard protection or a tutor package to assemble your best threats consistently.
Core Cards
- Dire Fleet Ravager
- Windfall
- Timestream Navigator
- Sunken Hollow
- Skeleton Crew
- Angrath's Marauders
- Rakdos Signet
- Crumbling Necropolis
- Captivating Crew
- Spectral Sailor
- Hostage Taker
- Nephalia Drownyard
Seeded from a single deck — rates appear once more public decks exist.
Win Conditions
- ▸Repeated Pirate combat damage from a wide, hasty board
- ▸Reanimating large bombs early to overwhelm opponents
- ▸Value-grinding with recursion until opponents run out of resources
- ▸Treasure-fueled big-mana finishers or X-spells
Archetypes
- Pirate Tribal — Brass directly rewards a deck full of Pirates with repeatable reanimation and aggression.
- Reanimator — The mill-four ETB and combat reanimation make graveyard cheating central.
- Aristocrats — Finality-countered Pirates exile on death, pairing with sac outlets and death triggers for value.
- Treasure/Tempo — Grixis Pirates generate Treasure to ramp into bombs and reanimation spells.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (BRU), by popularity.
